Used to be the Trying Woodsman... as derived from the Flying Dutchman...
In this blog I'll post my outdooradventures and other things related to this topic...but I decided to expand my blogposts and topics to include homesteading, self reliance and all things related. Global and social developments on enviromental issues and associated economic or political issues... They'll all find a place too, somehow.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The economic sword of Damocles...

or the struggle to remain...
or the need to let go....
or a time to clean up and clear out.....
or maybe even final day of the year contemplations?.......

Whatever I or you would want to give this post for title... I don't know, since there are so many possibilities.
I wrote about the great gifts for (or of) christmas and as usual that is immediately followed by some sort of hammerblow. And with us that practically always is economics related. In plain English it means we're flat broke (as usual), but even unable to make ends meet (and that is quite rare, thankfully). What I always fear has happened; an unusual large expense has blown a gaping hole in our budget. Our youngest daughter needed glasses. She has for a long time and we have been putting it off for more than a year. In that year her eyes improved a lot by themselves, but for the final stretch they need help. So we went and got them, thinking we could get them relatively cheap, using a sale. Turns out that that was just for the frame. The actual glasses had to be added.....
We started december on quite ill terms and we end it in due style.... even worse. Yet the past has taught us through events similar to this that there is some change to be made. We need to....
This situation is forcing us to let go of things, sell them, which will eventually unclutter our home and maybe our life as well. It also forces us to re-evaluate our economic situation and as such our situation as a whole. We have to become creative again, reassess priorities and if anything situations like these refuel the resistance to the system. Because it once again becomes crystal clear that this system is not willing to let go of its grip on you. It has bound you, enslaved you and seeks to crush anyone trying to resist, rebel and fight free from it. You must have a job, you must pay your bills and taxes and you must comply with the capitalistic rules... If not the system and its henchmen will bare down hard on you.... Without remorse.... Merciless....
And yet it is not just "the system out there". It is also the system that has been bred into us, into our brains, into our very own systems. The current situation has also taught us that we need to change our selves, our behaviour.....
I for one like to shop in real life and online, hunt for bargains, for things that will be useful.... later. And although I do get those things often dirt cheap, many cheap things add up.... Like all the things we had been getting to use for our company later on. Yet as time passes the materialisation of such an undertaking is becoming ever more doubtful. We are being forced to work towards the original plan A more and more.. Small scale homesteading... Taking care of ourselves and by starting small. Babysteps. I guess I wanted to fly to high all at once. Planning, daydreaming.... which eventually (probably) might have lead to loans and slave labour on my account. I really need to learn how to crawl and walk first, before I can run or maybe even jump... I need to learn patience... I am not a patient man...
The inactivity during the winter months (not taking into account carrying in firewood, since snowshovelling is not an issue... yet) has actually made my physical condition deteriorate. I nagged about the issue with my shoulder and that is to stay. I must accept that. But sitting in my armchair for quite a few hours each day did nothing to improve that. On the contrary. And now I can add lower back problems to that as well. Nothing serious (so far) but severe stiffness, due to immobility and a wrong posture.
It is that we have Rex these days, so I do get out more often than before and last weeks real winter weather sure did help with that! Which unfortunately has gone for now.

We will overcome this. We always do... somehow... miraculously... And some lessons are (re)learned.
We will end the year on less than favorable terms. But that means we can only improve the next year. For if we do not we will have failed utterly. And failure is not an option. Not to me, not to my family. We will remain... We will survive.... But we need to readjust....
We need to find our way, stay on our path and sometimes hitting a wall will put us back on course.

A signpost of the dalkarlsvägen...We regularly pass it by..

We need to simplify, focus on the essentials and get rid of all that excess weight..... A company of our own would have made things vastly more complicated, however noble our intentions might have been. Maybe at a later moment, when I actually now what I am doing...
On the other hand is it my wife's hobby, which we had planned to include into the company, that has been keeping us afloat these last months, by adding just enough financial buoyancy to keep us from going under. She does wonderful things with wool and wool felting. It has done so for a few years around the holiday season, but now she is stepping things up a bit. Not just by selling, but by actually taking small orders and now by adding workshops. She is finally doing something she really enjoys.

Maybe she is meant to let go of her job as a cleaninglady and release her creative flow. Maybe she is an artist, not an employé.

And maybe I am more of a farmer instead of a woodsman, no matter how much I enjoy being in the woods.

Maybe it is time we all stopped pretending to be something we are not and is it time to accept and become what we really are or are meant to be....

It is time....

And this is the actual link to Andrea Hejlskov's blog, which in a way has prompted me to write this down. It that makes me think and to which I can connect in some unexplainable way.

What ever you do and where ever you are, have a great new year (if you are into this thing) stay safe and in one piece and use the remaining days of winter to rethink things.... Before the frantic activity of spring takes over....
Take the time of winter to think and readjust and use the energy of spring to act.... That could be my new years resolution.... if I did this sort of thing.
A coincidence in timing... except that I do not believe in coincidence...

1 comment:

Hope you figure it out. Seems like you figure one thing out, something else changes, right? :) Good luck, baby steps. You are already so lucky to be in such beautiful forests! Blows me away just looking at the pictures.

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